1918

724
SHANGHAI
French Concession are the Municipal Hall and the Consulate. In 1914 the new-
building of the Cercle Sportif Francais was thrown open to the members of the club
•and their friends, the more humble pavilion having given place to a handsome two-
storied edifice. A bronze statue of Admiral Protet, who was killed when directing
an attack on Nan-yao on 17th May, 1862, stands in front of the Municipal Hall
The Public Markets of the French Concession are large and well built and are perfect
as regards sanitary arrangements. An efficient tram service is maintained in both
Settlements.
Institutions
Among the institutions of the place may be mentioned the Shanghai Volunteer
Corps, composed of members of all nationalities, under the command of Major T. E.
Trueman. It consists of 47 officers and 1,057 other ranks, made up as follow:—Staff 6,
Light Horse 34, Artillery 35, Maxim Company 52, Engineer Company 74, “A” Company
•(British) 106, “B” Company (British) 64, Customs Company 53, American Company 97,
Portuguese Company 75, Japanese Company 93, Chinese Company 81, Shanghai Scottish
Company 87, Italian Company 35, Buglers 8, Reserve 98, Motor Car Company 19. Maritime
Company 45. These numbers are exclusive of the Medical Staff and the Band. On the
declaration of war by China onGermany and Austria Hungary, the companies drawn from
the subjects of those countries were disbanded. Originally formed in 1861, the Volunteer
Force gradually went to decay, until the fear of attack after the Massacre at Tientsin in
1870 caused its revival with considerable vigour. It again dwindled in numbers, but a
re-org&nisation under the late Major Holliday proved successful, and in 1900, during the
Boxer crisis, the membership of 300 was more than trebled and included a Naval Company,
since disbanded. At the inspection made just before the war by Major General Kelly,
c.B., Commandant of the Hongkong Garrison, the Corps was awarded high praise. Six
officers and 675 men were present on parade. The infantry is armed with the Leer
Metford and the new short rifles. A separate Company of Volunteers, under the order
of the French Consul-General, was formed in May, 1897. The Fire Brigade consists of
43 foreign volunteers under chief officer M. W. Pett and with a paid departmental
engineer, and a staff of 140 native assistants, and is composed of three motor Fire Engine
and one Hook and Ladder Companies, with six motor pumps, a spare fire engine and
steam fire float, three escapes, 117 ladders and 37,375 feet of hose. It attended 190
calls to fires, or supposed fires, in 1915, of which 17 were outside the settlement. It is
pronounced to be one of the roost efficient volunteer brigades in the world. Owing
to the increased number of fires an independent brigade for the French Settlement was
formed in April, 1908. There is now a Public Health Laboratory at which bacteriological
investigations and chemical analyses are carried out, vaccine lymph prepared, and the
Pasteur treatment of rabies undertaken. The Settlements are well provided with
hospitals. In addition to the large General Hospital, recently rebuilt and forming a
four-storied block on the northern bank of the Soochow Creek, to which an extension
has now been built, there is the Victoria Nursing Home, presented by the com¬
munity as a Jubilee Memorial, and enlarged in 1913, with a separate house for
maternity cases, and mental wards and an efficient English nursing staff available
for outside attendance, and also a large isolation hospital for infectious cases, native
and foreign, all these being directly under Municipal control. In 1917 further
extensions to the General Hospital were commenced which, when completed, will
made the institution probably the largest in the Far East. A bungalow to be
used as a sanatorium in connection with the Nursing Homo was purchased
in 1907. There are likewise several private institutions under the control of
the various missionary bodies. The other public institutions may be enumerated
as, the late Subscription Library containing about 12,650 volumes, which was
taken under the control of the Council in 1913 and is now a Public Library
with tree reading room ; a branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, with the nucleus of a
Museum; a Masonic Club,-a Sailors’ Home, a Polytechnic Institution for. Chinese, a
feeamens Library and Museum, a Wind Instrument Band of ten Europeans and twenty
Jr ilipinos, paid by the Municipality, which gives concerts in the Public Gardens every
day during the summer months, dance music in the Town Hall once a week, and Sunday
•concerts during the winter ; a Race Club, possessing a course of a mile and a quarter,
which holds race meetings in May and November; a Country Club on the Bubbling Well
Road; Parsee, Portuguese, and Customs Clubs; also Pony Paper Hunt, Cricket, Rifle,
T>u-iu ’ ’ase. 11, Racquet, Golf, Skating, Football, Swimming and various other Clubs;
Philharmonic and Choral Societies, English and French Amateur Dramatic Societies,